Against all odds, the British Board of Film Classification have seen sense and passed Maniac fully uncut at 18. Franck Khalfoun’s brutal POV slasher stars Elijah Wood (pictured above, looking delightfully inquisitive) as a sadistic serial killer obsessed with young flesh, and contains more sexually-motivated violence than a Friday afternoon round Jack Nicholson’s place c. 1977.
The decision was actually made a couple of weeks ago, but I was initially sceptical due to a runtime discrepancy between the film’s IMDb page and its BBFC report. The former turned out to be inaccurate, as confirmed by the BBFC’s press officer:
‘I’ve double checked and only one version was submitted and passed uncut at 18.’
As you may remember, last month I promised a copy of Elijah Wood — Hollywood’s Hottest Rising Star to whoever could guess the number of seconds the board would cut from Maniac. Amazingly, of the 41 entries that came in, only one correctly predicted that nothing would be cut at all. So congratulations Brady Hamed, this gorgeous tome will be winging its way to you soon:
